Celebrating The Firm: The Album

I’m feeling nostalgic today. I was going through my album collection and I found myself listening to 1997’s The Firm The album. Why this album in particular you may ask? Well, because it comprised of three artists who were at the time enjoying enormous success in their solo careers who had decided to come together to form a rap super group. Although a noble idea, it didn’t pan out as expected. The album was criticized for being too pop oriented and the group disbanded the year after.

This album is significant to me because it lumped up three of my favorite New York lyricists into one project and the debut song for the album Firm Biz was one of the first songs I was exposed to growing up as a kid. It was excitingly different. In the video the rappers looked clean cut, savvy, and dangerous while having fun at the same time. And guess what the album was inspired by… drum rolls... the 1993 movie The Firm, an adaptation of John Grisham’s 1991 legal thriller novel by the same name. So here we have a novel that births a film that inspires an album (awesome right?).

Now the rap group The Firm was made up of four members. Two members of the group come from Brooklyn (Foxy Brown and AZ) while the other two come from Queens (Nas and Nature). Here’s the interesting twist, both Nas and Foxy Brown are September babies and Foxy and I share the same birth day, coincidence… nah! (haha). Initially an original member was replaced from the group by Nature called Cormega. Some said that if he was still on the album it would have taken a different direction, but I believe it was for the best even though people complained a lot concerning its commercial feel.

Second song off the album that was great lyrically was phone tap. It had a lot of local radio spins but didn’t chart on the billboards. Some may claim that the strength of Dr Dre on the song and production had a hand in its popularity; however the story line of the video really helped to make the song visually appealing.

The third song I like off the album is desparados. The lyrics on the song are incredible. You have Canibus saying ‘I walk across the Sun barefoot lookin for shade’ or Nature’s line on the concluding verse ‘theoretically peep how we bless this, young and restless’. The storytelling and playing off of the previous artist’s verse is what first attracted me to this song, oh and plus the instrumentals, a scintillating Spanish guitar type sample just gives it that cool eerie feel.

Marvel Comic's Spinoff of The Firm

If I was to do a sequel for the album then I’d get the original members back on board. That’s Nas, AZ, Foxy and Cormega, and then I’d have Nature, Havoc, a member of the Wu Tang, Fashawn and Locksmith for features. To smooth it out RnB artists like Tank, K.Mitchelle, TY Dolla Sign or Bryson Tiller. Production would be Dj Premier, Havoc, The Alchemist, Pharell Williams and Kanye West, then I’d call it The Firm – The Sequel (haha) A little ambitious I Know, but hey! My dreams are valid…